to him as another father – for God’s
sake, send my son back in one piece.”
But that night and the following
morning passed with no further word
from the kidnapper. By then, there was
hardly a person in Australia who did
not know of the kidnapping. People
everywhere had seen Graeme’s picture
on TV and were on the look-out for
him.
T
he following morning, police got
what appeared to be their first break
in the case. An elderly man, out for a
stroll in French’s Forest, in a northern
suburb of Sydney, found the boy’s
empty school case.
It lay behind some rocks, only a short
distance from a main road. Detectives
were convinced that it had been thrown
from a passing car. About a mile
and a half north, officers came upon
some articles scattered in the bushes.
They included a plastic raincoat and a
school cap, both bearing the kidnapped
boy’s name; and a plastic lunch bag
containing an apple.
On July 10th, Mrs. Freda Thorne
rallied sufficiently to send for Police
Chief Ron Walden.
“I’ve been thinking back,” she said.
“One evening about three weeks ago, a
strange man came to the door. He said
he was a private detective and asked
me if a Mr. Bognor lived here. I told
him that I didn’t know anyone by that
name. Now that I think of it, there was
something rather strange about him.”
Walden privately thought that there
was certainly something strange about
someone who began his inquiries
by announcing that he was a private
detective. “And there was something
else – he had a foreign accent,” she said.
She described the visitor as between
30 and 40 years old, of average
height, but thick-set and sturdy. He
had dark, wavy hair, heavy eyebrows
and a sallow complexion. He had a
foreign appearance. He was wearing a
sports coat and light-coloured slacks.
His manner was quite pleasant and
courteous.” She didn’t notice a car.
On the following day, an engaged
couple appeared at Sydney police
headquarters and were ushered into
the office of New South Wales Police
Commissioner Colin Delaney. The
young woman said that on July 7th –
the morning of the kidnapping – her
fiancé had driven her to work as usual.
She said they arrived at the street
corner at about 8.23 a.m. She had not
noticed a boy waiting on the corner, but
she had seen a car parked nearby. She
said she noticed it because it was parked
too far out in the street – and her fiancé
had to pull into the oncoming traffic
lane to get round it.
“I know a little about cars,” she told
the commissioner, “and this was a Ford
Customline saloon, about a 1955 model,
metallic blue. There was a man standing
beside it. He was just closing the door
on the left side. He was a thick-set
man, with dark, wavy hair and he wore
a hat and a gabardine coat. I read the
description of the man who called on
Mrs. Thorne – and I believe it could
have been the same man.”
The young man verified his fiancée’s
description of the man and the car.
Neither had noticed the licence number
of the car, nor had they observed
whether there was a boy in it. But both
were sure that the car was a metallic
blue Ford Customline.
After Delaney conferred with Walden,
it was decided to search vehicle licence
records for blue Customline Fords and
question everyone in the Sydney area
who owned such a car.
The most puzzling aspect of the case
was that the kidnapper had made no
further attempt to contact Mr. Thorne
about the payment of a ransom. On the
advice of police, the desperate father
had withdrawn 25,000 pounds from
his bank account and was keeping it in
readiness in his home.
In the days that followed, three
people – a housewife, a bricklayer and
a Chinese laundryman – reported that
they had seen a stocky, wavy-haired
man sitting on a park bench across
from the Thorne home several timesbefore the kidnapping.
On July 18th, after having received
a score of phone calls from cranks and
crackpots, Bazil Thorne received a call
from a man who spoke with a foreign
accent. He sounded sincere. “I know
where your son is being held,” the man
said. “I think I can negotiate for his
return.”
Thorne asked the man what his
proposal was. But the latter told him:
“Before I do anything, I must have
a small payment to show your good
faith. There is a certain fish shop in
Merrylands. I want you to leave a
package containing a hundred pounds
in small bills there. I will pick it up.
Then I’ll contact you again.”
On police advice, Thorne drove to the
fish shop and left a parcel containing
blank paper. No attempt was made to
collect it, however, so the police believed
that the phone caller was an opportunist
who had hoped to pick up a little spare
change – then lost his nerve.
There were other attempts to make
money out of the tragedy. Twice Mrs.
Thorne was ordered to take the ransom
money to Brisbane but it all came to
nothing. By now thousands of pounds
were being offered as a reward.O
n the afternoon of August 16th five
children were playing in a scrub-
grown, refuse-littered vacant site in the
suburb of Seaforth, not far from where
the scbool case bad been found.
That evening at supper, one of the
boys told his father that they had found
a blanket “with something hard in it”
under a protruding rock in the vacant
land. The father went to investigate.
He unfastened two knots which hadHundreds joined the
search for Graeme
and police issued
numerous “missing”
posters (right)